Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1887-09-17
KANSAS SUGAR

Commissioner Coleman Enthusiaseic Over
the Present Outlook-Big Pronts 20 H
Made by tho New System Of Extracting
Sugar.
WASHINGTON, September l2-Commis-
sioner Coleman has just returned from an
official visit to Fort Scott, Kan, where The
department. of agriculture is conducting ex-
periments IN making sugar from sorghum
by the diffusion process and expresses him
self as being delighted with the results OBJ
tanned already. he says the expert
ments consist in the trial of a new pro-
cess in making sugar in this country
which dispenses entirely with the costly and
ponderous mills and steam engines, ETC.,
and uses far simpler and less expensive
method for extracting the Juice, by which
all the saccharine matter is obtained, while
by the former methods from 30 to 40 per
cent. on the average of the juice, even with
the cane after passing through
the mill, and with sorghum q
still larger quantity, because OF greater diff
Guilty in extracting. The new process is called
the division" or ''saturation" process. The
cane is cut into chips and passed into bat
terry of twelve cells, each holding a ton of
chips. Hot water is then applied, which
rapidly e1hausts the saccharine matter and
80 thoroughly that there is scarcely q trace
of 1t left. The cells are entirely practical,
being speedily filed, manipulated and
emptled, one man attending the entire oper-
alton.
The process is as rapid as the old method,
less costly and enables the manufacturer to
secure and utilize all the juice. instead of
ha1e
ments were made last year, but the cutters,
machinery and the method were all new
here and difficulties occurred which could
not be overcome at once. Some $1,000
pounds of sugar, however, made last year,
though we considered the experiments q
failure. The commissioner said:
Having had more time and the experience
of last year to guide US, I am more pleased
to be able to say that all difficulties seem
now to have been overcome, and no Touring
mill Is more surely turning out its quota of
flour than is the Parkinson sugar
out its quota of sugar to-day,
and sugar of the best quality, polarizing
1859. The mill is capable of working up
every twenty hours 15O tons of cane, making
therefrom IL, 600 pounds of sugar or more.
From the first swinging in the centrifugates
from 100 to 15O pounds of sugar per
ton of cane was obtained and about twenty
pounds more are expected from the second
swinging. A yield of from ten to fifteen
tons of cane per acre was being secured,
which would produce, by this new
process, from 1900 to 1,5OO pounds
of sugar. This sugar is worth
by the car load, 81 cents per 100 pounds.
left there after the first weeks work, and it
was estimated that over 100000 pounds of
sugar had already been made. The sugar
was there to be seen by everybody, too. Nor
is this ALTO every ton of cane,
aside from the sugar in it, there
are some ten or twelve gallons of molasses
and also the seed raised upon the cane,
amounting to about twenty-five bushels per
acre, and just as good for feeding all kinds
of stock as Indian corn-indeed the seed,
it is estimated, will pay for raising the cane,
which is merit possessed by no other
sugar plant. The people of Fort Scott,
after the first weeks successful
working of the factory, were carried away
with enthusiasm. The board of trade called
public meeting and filled one of the larg-
est halls in the city, where congratulatory
speeches were, made, followed by BAN
quet, and there was general rejoicing
throughout the city.